Choose 7 pre-loved books from the following list:
- The Testament | John Grisham
- White Gardenia | Belinda Alexandra
- Postmortem| Patricia Cornwell
- Oscar and Lucinda | Peter Carey
- The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini
- High Fidelity | Nick Hornby
- almost French | Sarah Turnbull
- Letters from my Father | Dasia Black
- Lies Lies Lies | Adele Parks
- Snow Angels | James Thompson
- The House on the Hill - A Memoir | Susan Duncan
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BOOK BLURBS
The Testament| John Grisham
Troy Phelan is a Sel-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die. Nate O'Riley is a hight-octane Washington litigator who's live too hard, too fast, for too long. Emerging from his fourth stay in rehab he knows returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it's going to be murder. Rachel Lane is a young women who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trappings and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil. In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure their lives are forever altered by the startling secret of The Testament.
White Gardenia | Belinda Alexandra
In a district of the city of Harbin, a haven for White Russian families since Russia's Communist revolution, Alina Kozlova must make a heartbreaking decision if her only child, Anya, is to survive the final days of World War 2. White Garden sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous night clubs of shanghai the harshness of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960's, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia. Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices, but is the price too high? Most importantly of all, will they ever find each other again? Rich in incident and historical detail, this is a compelling and beautifully written take about earning and forgiveness.
Post-Mortem | Patricia Cornwell
Introducing Dr Kay Scarpetta. A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedrooms. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random-but always early on Saturday mornings. So when Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner, is awakened at 2.33am, she knows the news is bad: there is a fourth victim. And she fears now for those that will follow unless she can dig up new forensic evidence to aid the police. But not everyone is pleased to see a women in this powerful job. Someone may even want to ruin her career and reputation..
Goodbye Girlie | Patsy Adam-Smith
In Goodbye Girlie, Patsy recounts a rich but often troubled life. She writes with wit and insight of her illegitimacy, her family, her short-lived war-time marriage, her years at sea and her loves.
Oscar and Lucinda | Pete Carey
They were improbable dreamers who dared to play the game of love, faith, and chance.
The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini
Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to gain the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting tournament, to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him-for he always helps Amir - but this is 1970s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in the street, although Amir feels jealous of his natural courage and the place he holds in his father's heart. But neither of the boys could foresee what would happen to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, which was to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade, and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return, to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him redemption.
High Fidelity | Nick Hornby
Do you know your desert-island, all time, top five most memorable split-up? Rob does. H keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it- even thought she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back you see. He can just do what he wants: like listen to whatever music he like, look up girls that are on his list and generally behaves as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stick in a really deep groove- and it's called Laura. Soon, Rob's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.
Almost French - A New Life in Paris | Sarah Turnbull
"This isn't like me. I'm not the sort of girls who crosses continents to meet up with a man she hardly knows. Paris hadn't even been part of my travel plan.." One night in Bucharest, a chance meeting with a charming Frenchman changes journalist Sarah Turnbull's travel plans forever. Acting on impulse, she agrees to visit Frederic for a week in Paris, a city Sarah thinks she know well. That is, until she falls in love.... Put a very French Frenchman together with a strong-willed Australian girls and the result is some spectacular-and often hilarious-cultural clashes. Sarah's clothes, her laugh, her conversation-even how much she drinks-sets her apart. Language is a minefield of misunderstanding and the simple act of buying a baguette at the local boulangerie is fraught with social danger. But as she navigates the highs and lows of this strange new world, from life in a bustling inner city quartier and surviving Parisian dinner parties to covering the haute couture fashion shows and discovering the hard way the paradoxes of France today, litle by little Sarah falls under its spell: maddening, mysterious and charged with that French specialty-deduction. Funny, perceptive and poignant, Almost French is the story of and adventurous heart, a magical city-and finding love.
Letters From my Father | Dasia Black
Letters from my Father is a powerful story of a young child's struggle to survive the loss of her parents, her name and identity. Dasia Black tells of her life's journey from her childhood in Nazi-occupied Poland to Stuttgart in liberated Germany, then to her teenage and adult years in Australia. A letter from her lost father, a message of hope for his daughter written from the abyss of destruction, provides the resiliene she needs to move beyond bereavement and displacement to a purposeful life.
Lies Lies Lies | Adele Parks
Lies. They can make you. They can break you. Daisy ans Simon's marriage is great, isn't it? After years together, the arrival of longed-for daughter Millie sealed everything in place. A happy little family of three. And so what if Simon drinks a bit too much sometimes- Daisy's used to it, she knows he's letting off steam. Until one night at a party things spiral horribly out of control. And that happy little family of three will never be the same again. In Lies Lies Lies Adele Parks explores the darkest corners of a relationship in freefall in a memerising tale of marriage and secrets.
Snow Angels | James Thompson
When a beautiful and high profile Somali immigrant is found dead-her body gruesomely mutilated-small town detective Kari Vaara fears that exposure to the media will send shockwaves through Finland, an insular nation afraid to face its demons. Haunted by his past, the investigation begins to take its toll on Vaara and his American Wife, Kate. Pregnant with their first child, she is struggling with the Finnish culture of silence and isolation. Things get too close for comfort when the chief suspect turns out to be someone vaara knows that the unrelenting darkness and extreme cold above the Arcitic Circle could drive anyone just a little insane... perhaps enough to kill.
The House on the Hill - A memoir | Susan Duncan
In The House on the Hill, Susan Duncan reaches an age where there's no point sweating long-term ramifications. There aren't any. This new understanding delivers an unexpected bonus- the emotional freedom and moral clarity to admit to hidden and often fiendish facts of ageing and, ultimately, to find ways to embrace them. This, in turn, unleashes and overwhelming desire to confront her intractable 95-year-old mother with the dreadful secrets of the past before it is too late, no matter the consequences. It is the not-knowing, she says, that does untold damage. Interwoven with stories from the land-building, a sustainable eco-house on the mid-coast of NSW with her engineer husband, Bob, and grappling with white-eyed roans, dogs, bawling cattle markets, droughts and flooding rains, not to mention blunt-speaking locals-this is a book about a mother and daughter coming to terms, however uneasy, with the awful forces that shaped their relationship. As the inconstancies of age slow her down, Susan Duncan writes with honesty about discovery and forgiveness, and what it takes to rework shrinking boundaries into a new and rich life.
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